Wedding Weekend Projects with Lee

Lee visited Salem this weekend, and we were able to complete a few wedding projects.

For our ceremony, we made decisions on songs and readings.  The parents, grandparents, and bridal party will be walking down the aisle Air on the G String by Bach.

I will be walking down the aisle to this version of the wedding march:

This song will be our special music during the lighting of the unity candles:

And we will be walking up the aisle as a married couple to this song!

My brother will be doing our readings.  Here are the readings from the Bible we have chosen:

Jeremiah 29:11-13  

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, 

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, 

but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, 

but do not have love, I am nothing.  

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, 

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. 

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails.

A couple of other fun things.  I got Lee's pocket square in the mail this weekend.  They did not have pocket square in our color at Mens Wearhouse, so I had to order online.  I ended up getting a good deal; the pocket square, with shipping, was under $10!

Lee will wear this in his tuxedo's pocket

I also was able to work on the wedding invitation suite, since I am designing my own.  This picture is kind of blurry, but you can get the general idea.  There will be two pages sent with our invite.  The first will be the invitation and the second will be the information and a detachable RSVP postcard.  The third page you see is the back side of the information/RSVP postcard.  To RSVP, guests will detach the pre-stamped bottom portion of the second page on a perforated line.

We are going to print the invites on white or cream shimmer paper.  I would like to either tie something around the 2 pages or put a belly band around them to keep them together.  The tie or band could be turquoise to introduce our color scheme. 

Here is one last wedding project we started but did not finish this weekend: escort cards. We are going to be making wax seals to put on each escort card.  Lee's mom does calligraphy, and we are going to have her write them out for us.  Here is our inspiration and our tester card:

Inspiration

This seal has wedding bells, but we also bought a wax stamp with hearts

We didn't use real wax to make our version.  We used hot glue, a wax stamp, and silver spray paint to achieve the same effect.  We found the cards at the dollar store in packs of 50 for 25 cents a piece.  The back of a card will have a printed off sticker designating which tables the person can sit at.  We will not be having individual seating place cards, but these will serve as a guideline so family can sit closer to the head table. 

Lots of to-do list items were conquered this weekend!  I love crossing things off my list. 

The Wedding Craziness

Sometimes I feel like wedding planning is pretty crazy.  Last week especially was a whirlwind of wedding craziness.  I guess as long as I am not going crazy, we're fine!

Last week was good, in spite of how much needed to be done.  Lee and I met with both the reception and the groom's dinner venues for taste testing.  Right now, it looks like we will be having a buffet of roast beef and chicken pasta for the groom's dinner, with garlic mashed potatoes and vegetables on the side.  Lee's aunt will be making us (another) cake for dessert.  For the wedding reception, we will be having a buffet of garden salad, dinner rolls, lemon pepper chicken, roasted pork loin, a vegetarian Alfredo pasta, baby red potatoes, and green beans almondine.  We will be having wedding cake for dessert, of course!

Eagles Crest Grill, site of the groom's dinner

It was very interesting visiting with the reception venue and the church venue again.  Both venues have imposed quite a few stipulations that were not in place when we first booked them last winter.  The reception venue has raised all of its prices and changed parts of the contract.  In spite of the price increases, my parents are going to be graciously purchasing 2 kegs of beer and 15-20 bottles of wine for the reception.  However, we are going to do away with hors d'oeuvres, since the prices have drastically increased for fruit and vegetables platters.  Another bummer about the reception venue: if there ends up being a Friday event before our wedding, we can only start decorating at 10 AM the morning of the wedding.  A good thing about the reception venue: much of the hotel is undergoing renovations.  The pool area has already been redone, and most of the guestrooms have been redone as well. 

Meeting with the church was fairly straightforward, but we were told we would not be able to move anything major on or off the stage.  For example, if the piano is on the stage, we have to leave it there.  If the piano is off the stage, we have to leave it off the stage.  Luckily, Lee's parents know the guy who is in charge of decorating the stage, so hopefully we will have some say in how we want the stage to look.  We can still decorate the stage with any small items, including flowers, lighted trees, and candles.  Luckily, we can start decorating the church on the Friday before the wedding. 

I also was able to have my gown fitting.  This was definitely one of the highlights of my week.  I am using Emily's pageant gown seamstress who is SUPER talented to alter my dress.  She was very meticulous, which I loved.  I think she might even be more detail-oriented than I am!  She also had some great ideas for the bustle and hiding the zipper on the back of the dress. 

Gown designed by Caroline Hayden and sewn by the lady who is doing my alterations.  My sister wore this gown at the Miss North Dakota competition last year!

I was able to go shopping in Fargo with Becca and Lisa to help Becca pick out her bridesmaid dress.  Becca was the final bridesmaid to choose her dress.  I am happy to report that there were five different styles chosen between all six bridesmaids!  They are going to look fabulous! 

Finally, Lee and I went attended a wedding last week.  The wedding was gorgeous and very well done.  It was also probably double my current wedding budget!  This bride and groom did not skimp on any details.  Since it was a great wedding, I will be taking a couple of ideas from this wedding to use in my own.  For example, I loved the use of uplighting at the reception and the votive candles all around the room. 

DIY Unity Candle

Another DIY project!  This one was a quick one.  I didn't really care to spend too much time making the unity candle for the ceremony, and I think going the simple route worked well anyway.  All this project took was a Walmart candle, leftover ribbon, my computer/printer/paper, and scotch tape.  Tah dah!

You will notice I "tested" the candle.  I wanted to make sure the wick would light on the big day!  I've never heard any bad luck stories about pre-lit unity candles, but I have heard funny stories of unity candles that would not light!

Getting Around Town - DIY Map

Last night, Lee and I were able to pick up the remaining silk flowers I need to make the bouquets!  Since I'm in Portland for the weekend, I couldn't finish the bouquets just yet.  Instead, I decided to try my hand at designing a map of Grand Forks to include with our invitations.  It's nice to have Lee around to provide feedback on what looks good.  :)  But I would like to have your feedback too!  Is there anything else needed on the map below?

The red route shows the easiest route (with the fewest turns) to take from the church to the reception.  As you can see, there are many ways to get to the reception, though!  Also, this route takes everyone past the three hotels we have made group reservations at.  That way, anyone who needs to stop at the hotel between the ceremony and the reception will be able to.

It was quite simple to make the map.  I Google-Mapped Grand Forks and took a screen shot of the area I wanted to feature.  I then took a screen shot of the map, pasted the shot in to Microsoft Paint, cropped the image, and saved it as a jpeg.  I then opened the image in Microsoft Word.  I drew lines over the major roads and landmarks in the appropriate colors and labelled them with text boxes, clip art, and images from online. 

To finish it all off, I deleted the original Google Maps image from the background. I then took another screen shot of the Word Document, cropped the image again Paint, and saved the image you see above as a jpeg.  I love computers.

I'm not sure what will be next on the DIY agenda.  I feel like I have been going full speed ahead on these projects and may need to slow it down for a little bit.  I don't want to run out of projects to do!  :)

Dollar Store Bride

If you know me well, you know I cannot resist a deal.  I am not afraid to admit I love freebies, coupons, and the dollar store.  Today Lee and I decided to visit the Dollar Tree to check out if they had anything to use for our wedding.  And of course they did! 

Lee and I first checked out the wedding "section."  (Did you know: not only the Dollar Tree has a section dedicated to weddings, Walmart has one too!).  Our first find was 300-count bags of fake white rose petals.  We figured we could use these either in the church aisle or to scatter on tabletops.

 We also picked out some white wire garland with little plastic hearts sticking out of it.  We think we could use it for tying back tulle, edging tables/doors, or wrapping around things.  Not very specific uses, but we are sure we will use it!  The garland pictured below isn't the exact garland we bought, but you get the idea.

We then went on to the candle aisle.  I decided I will be making our unity candle, so we scoped out the candle options at the dollar store.  They have two tapered candles for a dollar, so I am sure I will be back to purchase two of those.  Today we purchased two glass candlestick holders for the taper candles.  We will use a pillar candle in the middle.  I have yet to brainstorm how I will decorate the pillar candle...

Onward we went to the picture frames.  Although we did not buy any picture frames today, I know we will be back to revisit this section of the store to purchase frames for some of the projects I have in mind!

Then, divine inspiration struck.  Earlier this week I had seen a fabulous centerpiece on Pinterest.  Oh how I love Pinterest!  The centerpiece utilized fishbowls stacked upon each other.  When Lee and I stumbled upon small fishbowls at the Dollar Tree, I knew I would want to try to recreate this decoration.

All of the fishbowls at the Dollar Tree are the same size, but we decided we liked the look of the identical fishbowls stacked just as well.  We debated about what to put in the bowls, and we decided to put a candle in the top bowl.  In the bottom bowls, we decided we would put turquoise beads and a single white flower bud nestled on top of the beads (kind of like the picture below, except the flower would be white and the water would be turquoise beads). 

We looked through the store for blue beads, and we found a perfect substitute: air freshener gel beads.  These gel beads are the perfect color.

In total, we bought enough fishbowls to make one tower of three and two towers of two (7 total).  We also bought 4 containers of the gel beads.  We'll buy the flowers and the candles later.  We think we are going to use this decoration either at the guest book table or on the punch or cake table.

Last, but not least, I bought a package of white doilies.  I want to try making a craft like the one below:

 

Church Decorating

I am essentially getting married on a large stage.  Stages are cool, but I think it would be nice to dress it up a bit for a wedding.  Even though I am not very familiar with the stage dimensions and the items they have available to decorate, I thought I would try to come up with a rough sketch of my "dream" decorating for the stage. 

I know a few of the things the church has on hand.  For example, they have long white strips of cloth they drape from the ceiling to the floor.  I would definitely want these cloths up, even if we have other decorations in front of them.  In the picture, these white cloths would be behind all of the decorations I drew.

I know the church has a number of while pillars, but I am not sure how many.  I would assume they have at least 4, but I drew 6 large pillars in my picture.  I also drew some small pillars.  I know the church also has some small pillars, but again, no idea how many.  Small pillars could easily be substituted by small round stools covered in white cloth/tulle.

I know the church has the big black and white dividers that you see in the center of my picture.  Becca used these in her wedding.  I also stole the candelabra inspiration from her.  :)

This is kind of where the design gets tricky.  I think it could look really cool to have tulle or white cloth draped over the pillars.  I don't know if it would work out as perfectly as I made it look in my sketch, and it make take some playing around with.  Plus, there are multiple ways to drape the tulle around the pillars. 

I like the idea of putting white flowers on top of at least some of the pillars, and maybe this would just be appropriate for the short pillars.  In my picture, I drew flowers on top of all of the pillars.  I know the church has an abundance of fake flowers.

Finally, I think it would be cool to line the stage with candles (if it isn't too much of a fire hazard!).  For Becca's wedding, we used candles at the base of the stairs, which you can see in the picture below.  Also, I definitely want to incorporate an aisle runner going down the sanctuary and up the stairs. 

As far as the piano goes, I think I want it pushed off to one side as far as possible.  In this picture, again from Becca's wedding, you can see the piano on the stage, off to one side.  I like the lighted trees the church has, and I think they would be great for filling in "gaps" on the stage, such as behind the piano. 

When it comes to the placement of a unity candle, or sand, or whatever we end up doing, I think I want to use just a small table, placed somewhere on the stage.  This time, I am stealing inspiration from Lisa's wedding.  :) 

So there you have it!  Now I have stayed up way too late thinking about wedding things.  Not a surprise!  :)

Confetti!

I think it would be fun to walk out under a shower of confetti!

Random Inspiration Pics

Sadly, it has been a long time since I have blogged.  In fact, it has been quite awhile since I have even thought about wedding planning.  I have been too busy! 

Here are some inspiration photos I have run across in the past few weeks.

I love black table cloths.  

I'd like to make little plaques for our chairs.  Not only cute for the chairs, but cute picture props as well.

I think a chalkboard is a good way to announce important information.  However, I really like the framed information as well. 

It's difficult for me to picture and plan what the front of the church will feel like.  Both of the pictures have white flower arrangements that I love, but I picked out these pictures as inspiration for different reasons.  I like the feeling of decadence the first picture offers with the different textures and many luscious details.  I like the symmetry and simpleness of the second picture.  Mostly, I am in love with the large white flower arrangements on pedestals!  I don't think either picture captures anything I could do with the venue, but I like the pictures anyway. 

Thinking about the ceremony a bit more, I actually envision hundreds of candles at the front of the church.  :)  Candlelight wedding services (just like Christmas Eve!) are also in vogue right now. 

I'd like to have some decorations in the aisle, whether it's tissue pomeanders, candles, or petals.

Finally, I have a feeling I will fully embrace some of these DIY projects, like this one, once I have graduated in June!
 

New Developments

I wanted to let you know an important tidbit of information: Lee and I have picked a date!  We are planning on getting married July 14, 2012.  Mark your calendars! 

Lee and I have been working on our guest lists.  The wedding is going to be quite a bit bigger than I initially thought.  We are looking at having approximately 250 to 300 guests.  This eliminates a lot of different options I was considering for the venues.  Because of the planned size, we decided we will be getting married at Hope Covenant Church (Lee's church).  I am looking forward to figuring out how we are going to decorate the sanctuary.  :)

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

Update!

I've only been home for just over 24 hours, but wedding planning with my parents has already been happening.  Here's an update with some of the highlights:

The Touch of Magic in East Grand Forks (the venue which I indicated as my first choice for a wedding reception in a previous blog post) is closing at the end of 2011.  Looks like I won't be having my wedding reception there!  ***Sigh...***  Moving on to my second choices, I guess.

One of these second choices was the Hilton Garden Inn.  I called the Hilton today, and I found out they seat up to 200 people in their reception hall.  My mom and I went to visit with their event coordinator this afternoon.  After visiting with her about prices and options, my mom was absolutely sold on the venue.  I think the Hilton is a great venue too, so I will be scheduling a taste-testing of the food once Lee gets back into Grand Forks.  We'll look at the Hilton's reception hall again at that time and make our final decision!  Even though I can't have the reception at my favorite choice, I'm really happy with how things are working out with the Hilton.  I think it is meant to be!  After all, the Hilton is the place where Lee and I first met.

I also called the North Dakota Museum of Art (NDMA) today to check prices for the ceremony venue.  The NDMA charges TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS to rent the building for a wedding ceremony.  The price is absolutely disgusting, and definitely not within my budget constraints.  Also, policies at the NDMA do not allow wedding ceremonies to take place during museum hours.  Even if I could afford it, I don't think I would want an evening wedding.  It's time to start considering plan B for the ceremony venue, and I don't think the answer will come as easily as it did for the reception venue. 

Major point of dissension between me and my mom: photography.  Having a good (strike that, not just good, but talented) photographer is really important to me.  My mother disagrees.  She thinks one photo is just like the next photo and suggests I hire someone I know to take pictures.  I really don't feel comfortable hiring someone who is not a professional photographer.  I know photography can eat up a large portion of the budget.  However, I don't think I want to settle on this issue.  


Dress shopping is in the near future!

Where?

Where to get married? That will be a question Lee and I will need to answer soon.

I'll describe each of these pictures, then I'll lay out the pros and cons of each location.

Location 1: UND campus chapel - inside







Location 1: UND campus chapel - outside
















Location 2: Hope Evangelical Covenant Church - inside (at Becca's wedding!)













Location 3: UND North Dakota Museum of Art - outside











Location 3: UND North Dakota Museum of Art - inside view from balcony













Location 3: UND North Dakota Museum of Art - inside looking across the entire museum

























Location 4: Christ the King Free Lutheran Church - inside











Location 4: Christ the King Free Lutheran Church - inside





















Location 5: My farm





Pros/Cons

Location 1: UND campus chapel

Pros: Really beautiful inside and outside and located at our alma maters
Cons: Only holds ~100 people and no place to get ready inside the chapel

Location 2: Hope Evangelical Covenant Church

Pros: Holds as many guests as necessary, Lee's home church, and lots of decorations available from church for ceremony and reception use
Cons: Located in a mall, "stage" atmosphere, and may feel too big

Location 3: North Dakota Museum of Art

Pros: Beautiful location (inside and out!), located at our alma maters, balcony for great ceremony photos, and a really unique venue
Cons: May not be big enough to hold all guests (would need to research how many chairs could fit) and can't pick the art on display at the time of the wedding

Location 4: Christ the King Free Lutheran Church

Pros: My home church
Cons: Only holds ~100 people and is not necessarily the most beautiful venue

Location 5: My farm

Pros: My home where I grew up
Cons: I don't control the weather. Or the mosquitoes.